Sit with You
by Flaignhan
Summary: George's mouth turned up at the corners slightly, though Hermione refrained from pointing this out to him.


**A/N:** Will try to update Tempora Abducto tomorrow. I was going to write this on Christmas eve but...well, I'm the Queen of Procrastination, what can I say? Anyway, hope you enjoy it, I love a bit of George.

* * *

**Sit with You.**

**by Flaignhan.**

* * *

Mrs Weasley looked towards the hallway, her mouth drooped and her eyes a little watery as she dished up dinner for ten people.

"Charlie, will you go and ask him if he wants me to bring something up for him?"

"I don't think he will, Mum," Charlie said, setting down his glass of pumpkin juice and getting up.

"Well just try," Mrs Weasley said, giving the gravy a final stir before she poured it into a large porcelain gravy boat.

Hermione looked at Harry, whose gaze seemed to be fixed on the salt shaker. She let her own gaze fall back to her lap, where her hands twisted and pulled at each other before she raised her thumb to her mouth and began chewing on her nail.

Harry automatically moved her hand away, as he had at every meal for the past six months.

Apparently the dinner was good, but Hermione found she couldn't really taste it. Like everyone else, however, she complimented Mrs Weasley on her cooking skills with a forced smile and a tired voice.

* * *

Hermione couldn't sleep. Nightmares of cackling maniacs and violent giants and friends; cold and lifeless, made it impossible for her to get any rest at all. She had planned to sit in the lounge and read a book, but on her way down she paused outside his door. Her fingertips brushed against the carved wooden sign, hanging from a nail by a piece of weathered string.

_Gred and Forge's Room_.

She pushed the door open gently, to see if he was sleeping. The curtains were open and moonlight fell across both of the beds, which had been pushed together to make a larger bed. He lay diagonally across the pair of them, his bottom half on his bed, his top half on Fred's bed. His eyes were open, and he was looking right at her, but she knew he couldn't really see her.

She moved forwards, sitting down on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on his arm and giving it a small squeeze. His eyes flicked up to look at her.

"We're all really worried George," she said quietly. "And I know it's awful, believe me I know, but it gets easier, I promise. And it'd be a hell of a lot easier if you were around other people. You need your family, and they need you."

"No they don't," he croaked, looking away from her.

"They _do_," Hermione told him. "Everyone's so worried -"

"I'm just a constant reminder of him. Who needs that?"

Hermione sighed. "They've lost Fred, and that's hard enough. They don't need to lose you, too."

"He was always the favourite anyway, they probably wish it had been -"

"_George!_" Hermione hissed, "don't you dare! That's an awful thing to say!"

"Probably true though," he said, shifting on the mattress.

"It's absolutely _not_ true, don't you _ever_ think that. _Ever_."

George said nothing.

"Please come down tomorrow," Hermione continued. "You don't realise how much it would mean to them. To everyone. And you clearly need a decent meal – this is probably the best time of year to get one!"

"No."

"George _please_," she begged, her grip tightening on his arm. It was shocking how thin he had become. He used to have the arms of a beater. Now however, she doubted he could hit a shuttlecock further than a few yards.

"No."

"It doesn't have to be all day. Just go down and try and make it through dinner. That'll last, what, an hour? Maybe a little longer? Have some turkey and some roast potatoes. It'll do you the world of good. And there's a huge Christmas pudding for dessert. You _must_ be starving. Don't tell me you're not. You've barely eaten for six months."

"I'm fine."

Hermione sighed and decided not to push it any further. Everyone else had been nagging him, he was probably sick to death of it all.

"Why are you out of bed? Father Christmas won't visit if you're awake."

Hermione looked down, half hoping to see a small smirk on his freckly face, a glint in his blue eyes as he teased her, but there was nothing. He was just changing the subject.

"Can't sleep," she answered with a shrug. "I was going to go downstairs and read but I kind of...stopped here instead."

"Right."

"D'you want me to go?"

"Not really."

Hermione was momentarily taken aback by his answer. She had expected an 'I just want to be alone, really' or something similar. A polite, but firm dismissal. 'Not really' was nothing of the sort.

"Have you been sleeping at all?" Hermione asked after a moment.

"Not really."

"Do you want me to make you a sleeping sol -"

"No," after a second or two, he added, "thank you."

Hermione nodded and fiddled with a loose thread on her pyjamas.

"What's it like? Growing up as a muggle? Is it hard?"

Hermione frowned. "Not really," she answered. "Just the same as growing up as a wizard I guess – you don't know any different so it's not really particularly difficult. We've got different stories to you though. And different games. It's just a muggle variation. Nothing majorly different. Why?"

George shrugged. "Just wondered. What games?"

Hermione went on to explain the concept of football as best she could (which actually, was not very well). George feigned some interest, asking questions every now and then, before he began asking questions about muggle stories.

"So you're telling me that nobody in that whole town had the same size feet as her?"

"It's a fairytale, George. You're supposed to suspend any logic while you're reading it. It's better that way."

"Seems stupid to me," George said in a huff, bashing his pillow into a more comfortable shape before he laid his head back down. "Who'd wear glass shoes anyway? Sounds dead uncomfortable to me."

Hermione smiled a little.

"Do you muggles not have anything of substance to read when you're kids? Is it all silly birds eating apples and scrubbing floors?"

"Well those are the fairy tales, but we do have some pretty good stories that were written a little more recently."

"Such as?"

"Well there's _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_, that's a good one. It's about a boy named Charlie and this man who owns a chocolate factory, Willy Wonka."

"Willy _what_?"

"_Wonka_, George, _honestly_."

George's mouth turned up at the corners slightly, though Hermione refrained from pointing this out to him.

"Anyway, this man, Willy Wonka, makes the best chocolate in the whole world. Better than Honeydukes, better than Cadbury's, and absolutely, one hundred percent better than Slugworth's."

George pulled a face. "I wouldn't want to eat any chocolate that had the word 'slug' in it."

"Yet you'd be quite happy eating Wonka chocolate?"

He smirked a little. "Fair point."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves though, because the story starts with a boy called Charlie..."

* * *

"I want chocolate. Wonka chocolate."

Hermione flicked her wand, and a few seconds later a box of Honeyduke's Caramel Cups whizzed in through the open door. "No Wonka chocolate I'm afraid, but these are quite good." She opened the box and he reached up, taking a chocolate, unwrapping it, then flicked the red foil onto the floor. Hermione frowned but said nothing. It was the first thing she'd seen him eat in six months, she wasn't going to tell him off for being messy.

"It's getting late," Hermione said a while later, glancing towards the sky, growing ever lighter as the night dragged into morning.

George glanced at the clock on the bedside table – half past six.

Since they had started on the chocolates, he had sat up, his back leaning against the navy coloured wall of his bedroom, a pile of foil wrappers scattered between him and Hermione.

"You can go back to bed if you like," he said. "Get a couple of hours' kip before everyone starts making noise."

"No, it's all right," Hermione said. "I probably won't be able to sleep anyway."

"You'll be knackered though. You probably won't even make it past lunch."

"I can always have a nap in the afternoon if I need to," she said, unwrapping another chocolate. "Besides, these should keep me going for a while," she nudged the box towards him and he took one, "and if I have a couple of cups of coffee I should be fine."

"Who's here?" George asked, frowning as he tried to catch a corner of the foil so he could unwrap his chocolate.

"All of your lot," Hermione said, "and Fleur, of course. And me and Harry too."

"Right."

"There's chocolate fudge cake if you don't fancy Christmas pudding," Hermione said with a pleading expression. "Just show your face George, even if it's only for dessert."

George's mouth twisted into an uncomfortable expression.

"I don't want to nag you," Hermione continued. "But it would mean so much to everyone, and it would be better for you as well, to be around people for a bit. If you're worried about them making a fuss or anything, I'll talk to them, I'll tell them to be as normal as possible and -"

"I'll think about it, all right?" George said, cutting her off. "We'd better get a bit of sleep though."

Hermione nodded and stood up. She began collecting the sweet wrappers so she could throw them in the bin, but stopped when George spoke.

"Will you stay?"

"What?"

"Sorry," he said quickly, "you don't have to. I dunno what I was -"

"I'll stay if you want me to," Hermione said. "I thought you were getting a bit sick of me though."

George shook his head and Hermione sat back down on the bed. George shifted down on the mattress so he was laying down, and Hermione followed suit, her body seeming stiff and uncooperative. She had never shared a bed with a boy before, and it was all a bit odd, sharing it with George, who she'd known for seven years, but only as one of her best friend's many brothers.

His hand, cold and rough, wrapped itself around her hand, his fingers linking with her own.

She glanced over at him briefly. He was looking determinedly at the ceiling. She gave his hand a small squeeze and his chest fell as he let out a breath.

* * *

Footsteps thundered up and down the staircase, and Hermione opened her eyes.

"Everybody in the lounge! Time for presents!"

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut briefly, then looked at the clock. Nine o'clock. She groaned and sat up. George's arm fell back onto the mattress, having been slung over her waist at some point during the few hours they'd been asleep for. She looked down at him, and considered waking him, before deciding it was probably best to leave him. A decent sleep would probably do him good, and he'd probably refuse to come down for presents anyway.

Hermione flicked her wand at the curtains and they closed, blocking out the wintry sun which was intrusively shining through the window. She got up and left the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.

* * *

"Hermione dear, would you lay the table for me?"

Hermione nodded and cleared the kitchen table with a long sweep of her wand. Being a fully qualified witch certainly had its benefits. A job that would have taken fifteen minutes to get absolutely right could now be completed in two.

"The crackers are in the cupboard under the stairs, dear. Get Ginny to show you if you can't find them."

"It's all right, I've got them."

Hermione whipped around and had to grab onto the table to stop herself from toppling over.

He'd had a shower and a shave. The sleep seemed to have done him good – the dark circles under his eyes were much less prominent, and he was wearing a clean, lime green shirt, perfectly ironed with the top button undone. He smiled briefly at Hermione and opened the box of crackers, laying one out at the nearest place setting.

"Oh _George!_" Mrs Weasley pulled him into a fierce hug, squeezing him so hard Hermione thought he might suffocate. George didn't try to fight it, and let her have her moment.

Bill popped his head round the door, his jaw dropping. He looked at Hermione and she grinned broadly at him. Once Mrs Weasley had released George, Bill stepped forward, clapped him on the shoulder and winked.

"Mum is there any more Butterbeer? We've already got through the first case," Bill said.

"Yes dear, in the shed," Mrs Weasley replied as she dabbed at her eyes with her apron. She turned to George. "Your presents are in the lounge, dear."

George nodded and picked up the box of crackers once more, laying down one at each of the ten remaining places at the table.

* * *

Dinner was a noisy affair, full of chatter and laughter, loud bangs from the crackers, chinking of glasses and clatter of knives and forks.

George remained fairly quiet throughout, though Hermione did occasionally force him into joining her conversations with Ron, Ginny and Harry. He didn't seem to mind too much, which only encouraged her to do it more often.

"Christmas pudding, George dear?" Mrs Weasley offered dessert to George first, a hopeful smile on her face as she brought the pudding over to the table.

George frowned. "I heard there was some chocolate fudge cake going, is that right?"

"Ooh yes, dear. We'll get you a nice big slice of that."

Hermione looked at George and he shook his head, both of them knowing full well that a large slice was probably half of the entire cake.

"D'you think she'll let me get away with only eating a bit of it?"

"No, absolutely not."

"Damn," George said, smiling wryly. "I'm gonna be sitting here 'til New Year."

"I'll sit with you, don't worry."

* * *

**The End.**


End file.
